Chemistry

A new environmental claim about endocrine disruptors would seem to be an early Christmas gift for the fundraisers and lawyers at the Environmental Working Group and NRDC but the scientist employed at each of those groups likely feels a little dread.

Because the new endocrine disruptor is salt, and despite the perennially low quality science that dribbles from their websites, even they must realize how stupid it looks. Maybe even enough worry that remotely inquisitive individuals might wonder, "Hmm. Salt is disrupting my 'endocrines?' Huh?? Maybe the other endocrine stuff they write about is garbage too."

Michael Pollan, food activist and journalist, is the proverbial man trapped in the past in his latest piece for the New York Times, criticizing the Obama administration for not catering to his bizarre beliefs about how food production actually works, and along the way taking the opportunity to smear...me.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a component of some plastics and is found in food containers, plastic water bottles, dental sealants, and thermal receipt paper. In the body, BPA is a mild synthetic estrogen, one of the gigantic class of chemicals called "endocrine disruptors", even if they are 1/20,000th able to bind as well as the actual estrogen.

Environmentalists claim that despite the FDA doing an exhaustive four-year study and finding no effects, even in pregnant mice, despite feeding them 1,000 times as much BPA as a human can get, and affirming that humans process and excrete BPA far more efficiently than rodents, that a magical hormesis effect is still causing problems.

Electronic cigarettes have grown in popularity as an alternative to traditional cigarette smoking - the idea is that since they are just nicotine vapor, users will not be placed in peril by the 200 toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke.

Still, they are controversial. The government does not allow them to be marketed for smoking cessation because no company is large enough to survive regulatory approval - except tobacco or pharmaceutical companies, which many e-cigarette users regard as the problem.

It
is commonly perceived that natural chemicals are safe while manmade substances
may be harmful. These perceptions,
however, if not supported by scientific evidence, can result in risk perception
gaps that can cause us to worry more than warranted by the evidence.

Jessica Alba's "Honest" company has been criticized for being frauds but it's not alone. Though the variation in cost for sunscreen protection averages well over 3,000, the variation is protection is not very much.

Like with organic food, you don't get what you pay for - unless what you are paying for is self-identification. But no matter what you pay or why you buy, you may not be getting a product that meets the American Academy of Dermatology's guidelines for sunscreens. This was largely due to a lack of water or sweat resistance, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.

In the lead up to the World Barista Championships, University of Bath scientists say brewing more flavorsome coffee could be as simple as chilling the beans before grinding.

A team from the University working with renowned Bath coffee shop Colonna&Smalls found that chilling roasted beans before grinding resulted in narrower distribution of small particles, which during the brewing process allows access to more flavor from the same amount of coffee.

Coffee is among the most valuable traded commodities globally, worth $17.9T USD to the US economy in 2015 alone. This discovery could have big implications for the coffee industry and might even allow domestic coffee connoisseurs to brew tastier beverages.

Much of te present-day chemical industry is based on oil; products from plastics to detergents and to medication have their origins in oil and its constituents. Yet oil reserves are finite, so scientists have been looking for ways to manufacture these products from sustainable materials, such as wood.

Technological advances have made it rather easy to detect food fraud. The seafood industry, in particular, is rife with dishonesty. In 2014, the Los Angeles Timesreported that 93 percent of fish samples labeled "red snapper" were actually some other species, like tilapia.